Topeka event sheds light on being transgender in the military

Sunday

Jul 30, 2017 at 6:04 PM

Adam Cole

Situated across from, as Topeka attorney Pedro Irigonegaray put it, "a beacon of hate" in the Westboro Baptist Church, about 75-100 members of the Topeka LGBTQ community gathered outside of the Capital City Equality Center Sunday afternoon to honor transgender troops.

The event, which took place after recent tweets from President Donald Trump stated transgender individuals would not be able to serve in the military "in any capacity," saw three different speakers: local attorney Pedro Irigonegaray, Equality Kansas Topeka Chapter chair Luc Bensimon and transgender Air Force veteran Gwendolyn Lesch.

"She’s a spokesperson for this," Kansas Statewide Transgender Education Project chair and president Stephanie Mott said of Lesch. "She can speak to how difficult it is to be a transgender person in the military. She speaks about patriotism and the right to serve your country, and the right to do so and still be who you are, and how truly American and honorable that is.

Lesch, who was discharged from the military, spent the majority of her life "pretending," as she put it, to be a boy. Lesch used to drink as a coping mechanism and got clean in 2000, joining the military shortly after.

"I lived in the bottom of a bottle," Lesch said. "I was trying to erase myself, trying to erase who I really was and it didn’t work."

Lesch — who joined the military pre-transition — was both a meteorologist and staff sergeant for the Air Force.

"I felt like I had purpose through this," Lesch said. "I loved it. I was good at my job. And I took a great deal of pride in it."

After working her way up the ranks of the Air Force, Lesch — who was still hiding her gender identity — was "becoming aware of her inner self, the person she was trying to fight," she said. Just as well, Lesch found her way back into drinking, which combined with her integral denials to catalyze a downward spiral, including the end of a marriage.

"My family life deteriorated," Lesch said, "my wife at the time was having difficulty adjusting to relocation, my working, the number of hours that I did. We started to resent each other for a number of different reasons and the monster that I became when I was drinking was spurred on by denial, alcohol, rage. By a confinement I couldn’t see or touch because I couldn’t admit it to myself who I was and all of this eventually ended my marriage.

"I was falling apart," said Lesch. "I wasn’t falling apart because of the job, I was falling apart because I couldn’t be myself. And when I tried to admit it, I was accused of falsehood. Eventually, my commander decided that separation would be best, but before they did that, they had taken a stripe from me; I went back to senior airman."

According to Lesch, losing a stripe in the Air Force ends a career "invariably." Shortly after this, Lesch was mandated for alcohol dependency treatment, and her physical and mental health information was given to her commanders, which showed she was having "gender confusion." According to Lesch, instead of acknowledging the information in her mental health information, her commanders decided to honorably discharge her.

"Despite all my failures, I’m still proud of having served," said Lesch. "I had to sacrifice my identity to do it. And that’s something the president can’t seem to understand. We need to be out or it damages us. We need to have care, or it damages us.

"His recent remarks are absolutely retrograde to the unity of this country," she said. "They are damaging. They encourage violence, they encourage abuse of a myriad of kinds, since the president is also considered the commander in chief of the armed forces. It is essential the president understands the structure, the policy and the procedures of the military. And it is quite clear he does not understand any of these. For the president to bar us from service is entirely unconstitutional. Being allowed to serve, but prohibited from transition is also unacceptable."

Lesch, who was formerly a member of the St. Louis Satanic Temple, broke away from the temple and co-formed a "religious sect" in St. Louis with the ultimate goal of fighting against theocratic legislature from passing in both Missouri and Kansas. She told those in attendance activism is her religion.

Lesch sees President Trump’s remarks as not only retrograde, but as an attack on transgender Americans and their patriotism.

"When we’re forced to hide, it becomes poisonous," Lesch said. "We want to serve and we want to be out in order to do it. We want to serve without suffering.

"A lot of trans people I know are highly intelligent; they are capable in body and mind," she said. "They have a desire to commit themselves to this kind service. They’re willing. And to be discarded, to bar us from service is to say we are not fully citizens. It is a right of citizens to be able to offer their service to this country and it’s also a privilege to serve, but there’s this refusal to know us or even hear us. There needs to be an acknowledgement of our patriotism. There needs to be — our country ‘tis of all."

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.

Advertising

Stay Connected

Original content available for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons license, except where noted.
The Topeka Capital-Journal ~ 616 SE Jefferson, Topeka, KS 66607 ~ Privacy Policy ~ Terms Of Service